Camp Creek lit up the tote with a double-digit upset in the third leg of the Canadian Triple Crown. Away a step slowly, the gray caboosed the field as Scholar Athlete (Einstein {Brz}) skimmed the hedge through early splits of :25.70 and :50.85. With just one rival beaten and running three wide as they clocked a mile in 1:40.58, Camp Creek still had plenty of work to do at the top of lane,. Rallying down the center of the course, the sophomore drew even with new leader and Queens Plate winner Sir Dudley Digges in the final sixteenth and edged clear to spring the upset.
“I can't say I was expecting it, but we were hopeful and thought he deserved a chance,” said winning trainer Rachel Halden, who is just the third female trainer to win this event. “To me, he was just an improving horse. I'd been looking to get him on the grass for a while and when we did he won quite nicely and it looked like a stretch out in distance wouldn't be an issue for him. Sometimes, when you have a 3-year-old Canadian-bred you need to take a chance at these kinds of races.”
Off the board in his seven-panel debut on the Tampa Bay main track, Camp Creek finished fourth behind Leavem in Malibu next out going 1 1/16 miles over this track's synthetic surface May 1. Third over that track and trip June 5, he broke through with a 2 3/4-length score when switched to the turf here in a nine-panel test July 15.
Pedigree Notes…
Camp Creek's dam Go Go Neigh is a half-sister to MSW Like a Gem (Tactical Cat), who is the dam of MGISW millionaire Hard Not to Like (Hard Spun). She produced the 2-year-old filly Erin Commodity (Hansen), a yearling filly by Lookin at Lucky and a weanling filly by First Defence.
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